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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28084566">from place to place</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/phraseme/pseuds/compositional'>compositional (phraseme)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>ACCA13区監察課 | ACCA 13-ku Kansatsuka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:14:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,006</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28084566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/phraseme/pseuds/compositional</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>keep it going baby</i> so we’re not interrupted<br/>If you don’t feel the same, <i>tell me</i><br/>Even though I don’t overdo myself on principle<br/>I’m fine with trying a little bit for you</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nino/Jean Otus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>from place to place</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/erzi/gifts">erzi</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title and summary description from <a href="https://kimonobeat.tumblr.com/post/100325728518/utada-hikaru-lyrics-distance-final-distance">kimono beat's translation of utada hikaru's 'final distance'</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Jean was assigned to another state, sometimes Nino met him halfway. Nino liked the smaller bars and restaurants off the main street. In every town and city, there were the larger shopping districts, with grander buildings that boasted of the district's prominence. They cast long shadows, and Nino never fully shook off the feeling of being watched from the tall roofs. </p><p>He liked sitting at the bar, too: he could keep an eye on the door, even if he could spot Jean's blonde head a mile away, and ask to refill his drink at any time of the night. Beer (which was, as far as Nino was concerned, also a type of bread that was merely packaged in a glass) was his preferred vice, and much cheaper than cigarettes.</p><p>There were only a handful of ways to feed Jean that didn't involve some form of sugared confection or bread loaf. Meeting Nino in small, dimly lit restaurants with well-stocked bars was very close to the top. </p><p>Jean's body flushed easily, all the more so when he drank. His cheeks pinked, a flush spreading down his neck and underneath the white pressed collar of his uniform. Nino usually slung his arm over his shoulder and offered to walk him home, even if the apartment with Lotta was miles away. 'Home' would be where the office allotted him quarters, drab rooms that hid Jean away until the next assignment.  </p><p>"Come on," Nino grunted, Jean pressed flush against his side. He still managed to sway a little, and then mumbled something under his breath Nino could barely hear. </p><p>"I missed you," Jean said, eyes glazed and bright. "I really missed you."</p><p> </p><p>Jean had refused to quit the workforce after the public reveal of his heritage. He continued to wear the inspection department's badges on his uniform, and behaved as the second-in-command officer with the same diffidence as before. He hummed gently the last song Lotta played in the morning on the radio, still went a little starstruck when Mauve was near him. Nino was used to having the center of his universe predetermined for him; it had been so since his father introduced Jean into his life. As Jean moved, Nino followed—as easily as a hand parted water, as the wind moved to shape itself around trees. Jean, who was not clutter-prone but still left things lying out when he was absorbed in his work; Jean, who hung up his heavy black jacket by the door and always patted its front breast pocket for spare cigarettes; Jean, who fell asleep too quickly at the bar and whose body Nino knew almost as well as his own, the shape of his shoulders and hips as he laid Jean out to sleep, alcohol on his breath. </p><p>He had wreathed himself in smoke as if it would obscure him to the public's eyes, and Nino did his best to find him anyway. All the more reasons to keep watch on him, he thought, and followed him to every state and district office Jean visited. </p><p>It was ordinary—extraordinarily so, and Nino found he could not begrudge him for it.</p><p> </p><p>So the postcards and messages arrived, one by one every few days or weeks. Jean merely sent the ones he thought Lotta would like, the pretty depictions of local specialties or wide, sprawling landscapes. And Jean would always bring something back: a cake or some other rare foodstuff, things that would light up Lotta's eyes and make her smile. </p><p>"No, they play it like—" Jean waved his hands in the air, the familiar red flush on his neck. "It's got these buttons." </p><p>Jean brought stories back for Nino, the tidbits that never made it into Jean's reports for the inspection department. There was no space for these details, the music Jean heard there or how interesting the local bazaar appeared. "I want to take you with me," Jean confessed one night, back after three weeks in Peshi, and Nino never forgot it.</p><p> </p><p>Nino liked to be the one offering Jean a light for his cigarettes. It was an unthinking habit now. Jean put the white paper to his lips and leaned in, head gently bowed, breathing stilled as he waited. He looked like a doll, or a mannequin posed in the same way forever until time began to move around him again. </p><p>Jean breathed in again when Nino's lighter flared to life. It was the part Nino liked best, the one that animated him and started the brief, quirked-up tic of his lips into a smile. Jean at peace, as he deserved to be. It was only right that his alias was 'Crow'—he still collected things, stolen moments that he treasured like a magpie among his baubles.</p><p>And the things Jean told him—at the bar, half a glass into his beer, and the rest at home, legs outstretched with a wool blanket around his shoulders like a shawl—he kept those, too. Jean as he met him in high school was different, in the way he held himself and how he saw things in the world. He was more wide-eyed, his curiosity more apparent. Jean was the boy Nino's father had described and more. </p><p> </p><p>When Jean came home, Nino and Lotta greeted him at the door. "Welcome back!" she cheered, and threw her arms around him. Jean handed Nino a paper bag as he hugged his sister back one-armed. Jean's two weeks in Birra had felt as if two months had passed.</p><p>"What did I miss?" Jean asked as he shrugged off his coat. Nino laughed, and waited for Jean to hang it up as he hefted the bag. There would be some kind of cake for dessert tonight, something that Lotta most likely would share photos of to her friends. It would be better off chilled before they cut it open.</p><p>(You,) Crow said, and Nino shook his head. He merely shut the door behind Jean, watched the subtle strain melt from Jean's features. "Oh, you know. Nothing."</p>
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